The Most Dangerous Woman in America
Sep 26 '00
Some of you may actually disagree with me on my choice to place this epinion in this particular category. But I believe that Socially Responsible Lyrics does not just encompass negative lyrics and how they influence our ever smaller global world. We should also consider those lyrics that have inspired our world to greatness, social responsibility, fair play, and social advocacy.
So many folk singers and songwriters have influenced and inspired those who have taken the time to listen to their songs. Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and John Prine are just a few of the socially responsible artists that have left a positive influence, exposed injustices, and helped young and old listeners alike to question the way things are, as well as share a chance for hope, social change and a new beginning.
One of my personal favorite folk songs is not likely known to most of you. It is about a woman named Mary Harris Jones, a woman born in the 1830's who served as a social advocate for the poor, working class, and children who were required to toil and labor in sweat shops for mere pennies a day. Mary was known to those who loved her as "Mother Jones" and the song to which I refer is written by Utah Phillips and sung by Ani DeFranco and Utah Phillips. It is entitled, "The Most Dangerous Woman in America" and narrates the life and times of a most courageous and miraculous woman indeed!
...."I was traveling through Illinois, when I was invited to stop and sing at a memorial, there in a little town called Mount Olive. Now, who of note in American history is buried in the cemetery in Mount Olive. I'll give you a hint, she was a woman, it is a Union Miner's Cemetery. Have it yet? Mary Harris, Mary Harris Jones, Mother Jones.
It is hard for the mind to encompass the life that embraced the Presidency between Andrew Jackson and Herbert Hoover. Why, when Mother Jones was a little girl, there were people still alive that remembered the Revolutionary War. She died on the eve of the New Deal. Her dress shop burned down in the great Chicago fire, and she had heard Abe Lincoln, speak in person. Mostly though Mother Jones was the miner's friend.
Down in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, men were organizing the underground workers, the miners. Mother Jones had already organized their wives and led them over the snow covered game trails down into the holler, where armed with mops and brooms they drove the scabs out of the coal pits. Now, Mother Jones wasn't an organizer, she was an agitator. Which meant often enough she was hated by the organizers as she was by the bosses.
One time Mother Jones was out in Colorado at the Great Ludlow Strike. Now that was the strike to enforce the eight hour day, which the state of Colorado had made into law. But they couldn't enforce it because Rockefeller owned the militia. Now the Governor promised not to send the militia into the coal fields, but he lied, and he did.
Mother Jones was in the Union Hall down there in Ludlow when word came that the militia had entered into the coal fields. Well, she leapt up and she screamed, "Let's go get the Son's of B**ches." And she stormed out. She didn't look to see if anybody was following her. Nobody, was following her. She just flounced up the road alone, and confronted the militia.
And that's the year that President Theodore Roosevelt called Mother Jones, "The Most Dangerous Woman in America." And she was 83 years old, that's some kind of dangerous woman.
The most dangerous woman in America, 83 years old, Mother Jones."
What little I know about Mother Jones is all positive. This was a woman that was willing to fight for the protection of the little guy. She was quoted as once saying, "I am not a humanitarian, I am a He**raiser." Now, I don't know about you, but I can only hope to be one tenth the woman that Mother Jones was.
It is folks songs like "The Most Dangerous Woman in America" that share socially responsible lyrics, and provide a role model for young and old alike.
Thank you for reading!
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Location: Lake Woebegon, Minnesota
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Love to travel, read, write, and surround myself with positive energy!
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